The agency client onboarding checklist: every brand asset to collect at kickoff
A client onboarding checklist for agencies and designers: the brand assets to collect before kickoff, a request email to copy, and how to sort a messy folder.
The contract is signed, the deposit has landed, and your new client's brand arrives as a zip called logos_old_new_USE, plus a screenshot of their Instagram grid. A good client onboarding checklist heads that off. For brand work, it covers eight things to collect before the kickoff call: every logo version with its source files, the fonts and who holds their licenses, colors with their codes, any old brand guide, approved words and voice, photos and who owns them, the people who approve things, and links to where it all lives today. Passwords and logins are not on the list. Those go in a password manager, never in the brand kit.
Below you'll find the checklist as a table, a request email you can copy, what to do when the folder arrives a mess, and how to set the client up so the files stay findable.
Why collect brand assets before kickoff?
Because the kickoff call should be about the work, not a scavenger hunt. With the files in hand first, you can:
- Spot problems while they're cheap. A JPEG-only logo, an unlicensed font or a guide from two rebrands ago is easy to quote for in week one, and painful to discover in week six.
- Ask better questions. "Is the copper in the badge still current?" beats "So, what are your colors?"
- Start on day one. Nobody on your team waits on a follow-up email.
The client onboarding checklist: brand assets to collect
| What to collect | What to ask for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Logos | Every version (primary, stacked, icon, reversed) and the original files: AI, EPS, SVG or PDF. Who designed it. | Only a JPEG, or a logo cropped off the website |
| Fonts | Font names, the files if they have them, and who bought the license | "It's whatever's on our website" |
| Colors | HEX, RGB, CMYK and Pantone, if they exist | Five slightly different blues across their materials |
| Existing guidelines | Any brand guide, style guide or brand sheet, even an outdated one | Two guides that disagree |
| Voice and words | Tagline, boilerplate, bios, product names, words they never use | A tagline nobody's sure is still current |
| Photos and video | Approved photos, headshots, who took them, the license terms | Stock photos licensed to someone who's left |
| People | Main contact, who approves, who pays, who handles press | Three people who each think they approve |
| Where things live | Website, social profiles, shared folders, templates in use (Canva, slides) | Files only on a former employee's laptop |
A few extras earn a line on your intake form too: work they love and hate (theirs and other brands'), deadlines and events coming up, and anything legally sensitive, like trademark wording or claims they can't make.
Logos: ask for the originals, not "the logo"
Ask for "every version of your logo, and the original files your designer gave you." Ask for "the logo" and you'll get the one from their email signature. If a JPEG is all they have, decide now whether you'll trace or redraw it, and put it in the estimate. Here's what to do when a client only has a JPEG logo.
Fonts: find out who holds the license
Commercial fonts are licensed to a person or a company. If the client's first designer bought the font, the client may have no license at all, and your studio's license won't cover their computers. Ask now, so "you'll need to buy the font" lands in the first estimate rather than the last invoice.
Photos: ask who owns them
Photos come from a photographer, a stock site or someone's phone, and each comes with different rights. Ask which photos they're allowed to use, where, and how the photographer likes to be credited.
What about passwords and logins?
Keep them out of the brand kit, out of email and out of chat. Brand kits get shared with freelancers, printers, new hires, and sometimes as a public link. Passwords shouldn't travel that far.
Instead:
- Use a password manager, with a shared vault (or collection) for each client, so access can be given and taken away one person at a time.
- Ask to be invited wherever the platform allows it, so you sign in as yourself rather than with the client's password. Most social, ad and analytics platforms have a way to add a partner or team member.
- Write down what you were given. A simple list of the accounts you can reach makes the end of the relationship clean. (The client offboarding checklist picks up from there.)
A brand asset request email you can copy
Send it the day the contract is signed. Fill in the braces first.
Subject: Getting started: your brand files
Hi {first name},
We're so glad to be working together. Before our kickoff on {date}, could you send whatever you have of the following? Messy is fine. Send everything and we'll sort it.
- Your logo in every version you have, plus any original files from your designer (they often end in .ai, .eps, .svg or .pdf)
- The names of your fonts, and whether you bought a license for them
- Your brand colors, if you have codes for them
- Any brand guide or style guide, even an old one
- Your tagline, your "about us" paragraph and any bios you use
- Photos you're happy for us to use, and who took them
- Who on your side approves designs, and who we should invoice
One request: please don't email us passwords. If we need access to an account, we'll ask you to invite us, or send a secure link from our password manager.
A shared folder link is easiest. Thank you!
{Your name}
What to do when the folder arrives a mess
It will. Here's the order that saves the most time.
- Don't open files one by one. Sort by type first: logos, fonts, photos, documents, source files. Set screenshots and system files aside.
- Group the versions of each logo. "Logo_FINAL_v7 (2).png" and "logo-final.svg" are the same logo.
- Keep the best of each. Vector beats PNG, a transparent background beats a white box, and the newest beats the oldest.
- Name each logo by its job: primary, wordmark, icon, reversed. Tabitha's file-naming guide has a pattern to copy.
- Pull the colors from the logos and check them against any guide you were sent.
- List the gaps and send one follow-up email with all of them, not five emails with one each.
Set up the client's home before the kickoff call
By kickoff, the client's brand should live in one place, with the same structure as every other client: logos, colors, type, voice, approved words, photos, contacts and links. (Here's how to keep many client brands apart.) Then use the call to confirm it:
- Walk through what you found, section by section.
- Ask "is this current?" about anything that looks old.
- Agree who approves, and how.
- Note the gaps you'll fill, and which ones you'll quote for.
Sending that kit back afterward, as a page the client can open, makes a lovely first deliverable. It shows you listened, and it becomes the place they look instead of your inbox.
Onboarding a new client in BrandTab
In BrandTab, each client is a brand of its own, and Tabitha, BrandTab's assistant, does the gathering with you.
Before kickoff, she reads their website. Say Harbor Health signs with you. Give Tabitha harborhealth.example and she reads up to eight public pages, then suggests the logos with their roles; Tide #2F6F7A, Sand #E8DCC4 and the rest of the palette, with names and hex codes; Avenir Next as the typeface; the tagline "Care that feels close to home"; tone words like calm, clear and kind; Dr. Ana Reyes as the media contact; plus links and the clinics' services. Anything that fills a gap comes ticked, you untick what's wrong, and nothing is saved until you add it. You walk into kickoff with a draft kit instead of a blank page.
When the zip arrives, she sorts it. Drop in the folder, up to 300 files. She works out what each file is, sets aside screenshots and system files, groups the versions of each logo, keeps the newest and sharpest, names each one's role (Primary logo, Wordmark, Icon, Reversed logo), builds a palette from the logos' colors, reads the family name inside each font file, and reads the first 20 pages of one brand guide PDF for colors, type and voice. Older versions wait in a "Left out" group. The files stay on your computer until you tick them, and only the ticked ones upload.
Harbor's clinics go underneath as sub-brands (Harbor Eastside, Harbor Westside and Harbor Kids), each with its own logos and words. Sub-brands count toward your brand limit, so this one client uses four of the 20 brands on Creative; Studio has no limit. The client's shared Drive or Dropbox folder goes in Links, with its path on your computer one click away, and Dr. Reyes goes in Contact.
Then share it back. On Creative and Studio, the brand sheet is a link the client can open. On Studio, you can also invite the client by email to view and copy the brands you pick, with their sub-brands. The invite link works for 14 days, clients are free and don't use a seat, and you can change what they see or remove them at any time. There's more on BrandTab for agencies.
Questions people ask
What should a client onboarding checklist include for a design agency?
Logos and their original files, fonts and licenses, color codes, any existing brand guide, approved words and voice, photos and who owns them, the people who approve and pay, and links to where files live today. Contracts, the deposit and the kickoff date cover the business side.
When should I send the onboarding checklist?
The day the contract is signed, with a date for the files to arrive a few days before kickoff, so you have time to sort them and list the gaps.
Should clients send me their passwords?
No. Ask to be invited to each platform as yourself, or use a shared vault in a password manager. Keep logins out of email, chat and the brand kit.
What if a new client has no brand guidelines?
That's common. Collect what exists (the website, the logo files, printed pieces) and build a one-page kit from it. It's often the first paid piece of work.
